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GPU Driver Updates To Come Quicker To Ubuntu

Phoronix: GPU Driver Updates To Come Quicker To Ubuntu

In an effort to make Ubuntu Linux a better gaming platform and make the open-source operating system more attractive to game developers, hardware vendors, and end-users, Canonical will make it easier to upgrade your graphics driver...

Brilliant - that's how it should be. On Windows it's "please go upgrade your video drivers", here it should be "please enable the latest drivers" - and you receive them as they're set. This also reduces the chances of using some random drivers off the net.

Why does everybody forget that Ubuntu isn't the only Distribution out there?

Originally Posted by phoronix

Updating the open-source drivers is a mess since it's not just one component but the Linux kernel, Mesa, libdrm, the DDX, and any other new dependencies.

Seriously? I always use the newest FOSS drivers from git and don't have that problems. But git != release, If I would use the newest (experimental) releases it would be even less incompatible (with whatever). On the other hand if I update my kernel and/or Xorg will the binary BLOBs still be compatible? :P

Which is only a problem if you develop for the kernel. The ABIs/APIs given to userspace are damn stable. And it's not the fault of Linux that the BLOBs are binary. If they where GPLed and included in the kernel they would be updated with the API/ABI changes atomatically

I am not a ubuntu user, never used and never had the urge, but why is this such a big deal ? In my case (opensuse) I simply add either the nvidia repository or I download the latest drivers and run the script or use the one click install. From reading this article I get the impression that you can't do any of that on ubuntu, that can't be right can it so I must be missing something?

people have extremely short memory. ubuntu used to do this and you had breakages. that's why they don't update the kernel and x.org so often. if everything was fine everyone would have rolling distros and everything would be ladi dada. at least on centos you get firefox updates so they don't look like a tool.

I think Michael missed one of the most important things of that blog post:

. We’ve brought in a patent-free S3 texture compression library for mesa required by Valve and the Humble Indy Bundle, to be installed on user systems by default starting with quantal (and precise via PPAs). And we’re working on getting mesa 8.0.4 SRU’d into precise (not required by Valve, but brings numerous fixes other games and 3D apps need).

Canonical seems to be willing to take a chance that no one else would, and include support for S3 textures out of the box!